"The ES&S iVotronic machines are fully HAVA compliant," spokesman Kevin Evanto said. "They have been certified by both the U.S. government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The optical scan machine does not have a voter-verifiable paper trail."

Even if it did, Evanto said it may violate state voter privacy provisions.

Yesteday afternoon Evanto sent me an email in which he defends his statement; well a part of it:

From: Evanto, Kevin
To: Gideon, John
Subject: My "Silly" Statement

John,
A voter-verifiable paper audit trail is defined as a "vote receipt" printed by an electronic voting machine showing the elector his/her vote as it is being acquired by the electoral system. Optical scan machines that are legal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania cannot have this feature because VVPAT is not permitted by our state. Get your facts right before you make sweeping, incorrect statements to the public. And if you don't believe me, contact the Secretary of the Commonwealth's Office in Harrisburg.
Kevin

To which I responded:

From: Gideon, John
To: Evanto, Kevin
Subject: My "Silly" Statement
Kevin,
Your statement, as you were quoted was:
""The ES&S iVotronic machines are fully HAVA compliant," spokesman Kevin Evanto said. "They have been certified by both the U.S. government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The optical scan machine does not have a voter-verifiable paper trail."

"Even if it did, Evanto said it may violate state voter privacy provision."

Clearly according to HAVA and the EAC Section 301 Advisory the iVotronic is NOT HAVA compliant. It does not provide any means for a mobility impaired voter to vote without assistance and in private. ES&S admits to that by responding to the legal complaint by agreeing to install a binary switch on half of the machines.

At the same time the above was announced it was also announced that the county would place optical-scan machines at each polling place. These are the machines that you claim violate voter privacy provisions? So the county will knowingly install a voting system that violates state law?

And to the issue of the definition you give for a voter-verifiable paper audit trail. By its nature an optical-scan voting system provides a voter-verified paper audit trail; the paper ballot filled out by the voter.

Nice try, Kevin. I guess we will leave it to the readers to decide about "sweeping, incorrect statements".

Ever notice, election officials make an initial response to a brad blog or blackboxvoting charge, that is full of holes? This is in hopes that brad blog or blackboxvoting do not make a counter-response pointing out their lies/propoganda/incompetance. So, brad blog and blackboxvoting MUST respond. See Arthur Andersen's first response to Bev Harris. First, they ignore you. Then they make ridiculous responses. Then they resign or go to jail.

They really think they can issue ridiculous responses, full of holes, and expect it not to be pointed out. Why doesn't this election official go on a talk show, or debate someone from brad blog or blackboxvoting?

Speaking of Wrecks - this morning, just as I was pulling into my parking space at work, Stephanie Miller played a recording of Bush introducing his new Budget Director and expounding on how he was going to spend the Taxpayers money wisely!

A voter-verifiable paper audit trail is defined as a "vote receipt" printed by an electronic voting machine showing the elector his/her vote as it is being acquired by the electoral system. Optical scan machines that are legal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania cannot have this feature because VVPAT is not permitted by our state. Once the optical scan ballot is placed into the scanner, there is no way to trace it back to an individual voter-therefore, it is not a voter-verified paper audit trail. If it were, we would not be able to use it in Pennsylvania.

Just a quick note on Kevin's statement:
"They have been certified by both the U.S. government..."

Kevin:
I would urge you to do your homework, especially before chasting people who know a hell of a lot more than you do regarding voting systems.
For your information: The U.S. Government does not certify any voting systems. Incompetent government officials spouting off ignorant, misleading statements at the taxpayers expense, and against those same taxpayers' interests, need to be fired.
Our vote is not something that we will passively allow to be trampled upon.
Question: If Pennsylvania does not allow a VVPAT, just how do you conduct an audit or recount of those votes electronicaly recorded, and/ or tabulated?

On Hardball With Chris Matthews(MSNBC) yesterday (4/18/06), a reporter stated that on a district by district basis, polls show that republicans would hold the majority.

In other words, the design of the districts is such that it thwarts and is contrary to the will of the people at large.

The map link above shows how true this is. Look at the 25th and 28th districts of Texas, Tom DeLay constructs, to see what I mean.

We have a dictatorial situation anytime the will of the people is thwarted by its government. There is no other name for it. Some dictatorships are less vile than others, but calling a spade a spade is what I am talking about.

We have a dictatorship if the people cannot express their will by their vote. If the government allows us to vote but that vote is meaningless, the fact is that it is a dictatorship because the people cannot change the government.

The Texas gerrymandering case has been put on the fast track by the US Supreme Court (link here).

This is unusual under normal circumstances, but is all the more unusual since the cases have been stalled and have therefore been on the slow track in the US Supreme Court until now.

The case it now seems that will be reversed is Henderson v Perry (link here).

The issue of gerrymandering is equal to the problem with voting machines. Because even if we perfect the voting machines, the gerrymandering issue is just as much a threat.

Both evils ... gerrymandering and fraudulent and junky electronic voting machines ... are destroying American democracy.

And if the judicial goes down the tubes too (link here), and does not stop gerrymandering, I am sorry to say that democracy will be gone from American soil for a long time.

Kevin wrote: "Once the optical scan ballot is placed into the scanner, there is no way to trace it back to an individual voter"

I think what he is saying is that there is a paper ballot which is inserted into and read by the optical scanner. This ballot is not tracable to the individual voter, but there would be a paper trail because there is the ballot itself which was read by the scanner.

This would keep the voters vote private, but still leave a trail.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against these machines in all of their versions, but I think I see some logic in what he is saying.

A receipt showing "How the machine recorded your vote" could be rigged while the machine actually records something different.